“Heating and air conditioning,” Estelle expanded. “Rod’s a private contractor.”
“Good,” Bobby said.
“I can’t stand bosses,” Rod said simultaneously.
“File taxes?” Bobby asked.
“No,” Rod said angrily. “I’m fuckin Al Capone.”
“Oooofff!” Estelle ground her teeth, twisted in her chair. “Can’t you even once control your mouth!” To Bobby she said, “Yes, he files. I file for him. He had a profit last year, on the Schedule C, of thirteen thousand four hundred something.”
“Four fifty-six,” Rod added. “I’m not a bum. I just sunk it all back into a pickup with a utility body. And into my shop.”
“I make eighty-five hundred—” Estelle began.
“Eighty-six,” Rod corrected.
Bobby took out a form entitled Buyer’s Profile; pushed his pen quickly; asked a few questions about debts, loan payments; scribbled a few notes. “Any kids?”
“No.”
“Expecting any?”
“Fuck you.”
“Rod! Please!! No, we’re not.”
“Present rent?”
“Two hundred seventy-five.”
Bobby mumbled loud enough for Olivia, Estelle, and Rod to hear “... twenty-two divided by three point five ... this is just ballpark—” he flipped to the amortization table, “fifty-seven, fifty-eight thousand dollars ... You could buy one hell of a house.”
“But not VA, huh?”
“We could try, but—” Bobby slapped the desktop, got loud. “Before you clam up, hear me!” That got Rod’s attention. Bobby continued. “The market right now, for sellers, is slow. You won’t believe some of the financing owners are offering. You qualify for a decent size loan. I could put you in a house, very comfortably, let’s say with an eighty percent, forty-thousand-dollar first mortgage—that’s about two eighty a month—get the owner to carry a second for the rest—ten thousand at ten percent, fifteen-year schedule, ah, about one ten monthly. All due and payable in say five years.”
“Three ninety,” Rod stammered. “I’m comfortable with—”
“Wait a minute.” Bobby worked the figures quickly, “... reduce your taxable income by ninety-five ... Do you have, let’s say three thousand for closing and a little cushion?” Bobby asked.
“Gotta be a catch someplace,” Rod snickered.
Estelle’s face fell. “Not really,” she said.
“That’s okay,” Bobby said. “We can work around that, too. Try and put some money away. Borrow some from your folks. Put it in an account in your name. Just something to show the bank loan committee. I know the appraiser. I can get him to up his appraisal enough to cover the closing costs. But you’ve got to make yourselves look good on paper.”
“Is that legal?” Rod asked. Though his eyes betrayed disdain, his manner had softened.
“Borderline,” Bobby said. “I don’t much like bosses either.” Rod chuckled knowingly. “The trick here is to find a house you like with a seller willing and able to carry the second and work with us. But there’s more out there than you might think.”
After the Klemenchichs left, Olivia came back to Bobby, thanked him profusely, then took his hands, tenderly kissed him on the lips, twice. “You look like you needed that,” she said sweetly. She did not smile but turned, walked toward the door, turned back, her eyes meeting his. “See you tomorrow.”
The evening was cool, misty, typical San Francisco July weather—winds gusting in from the Pacific, thrashing Dutch and Murphy windmills, lifting the scent from the Buffalo Paddock, dipping and churning, buffeting the Portals of the Past, becoming a breeze to the lee of Strawberry Hill, aromas mixing with rose essence from the Japanese Tea Garden and music from the Golden Gate Park Band Concourse. He had come to escape The Embarcadero, the dark halls of the residence hotel, the dim lobby, the concierge’s watchful, desiring eye. He had come to ponder, to assess, to plan. The big Victorian fixer-upper at the end of Miwok Road was now in his name. So too the small two-bedroom house in Riverside—that one without covert contracts. But Ty Dorsey was nearly broke. The purchases and unseen fees had taken all his capital. He had barely enough money for the seven-dollar per week rent, or for an occasional peroshki from the Russian kiosk just south of Kezar Stadium and the park. The kiosk was closing, the merchant lowering the shutters, locking them to the narrow grease-splattered counters. Ty’s stomach gurgled. His tongue rolled in his mouth coaxing the heavy flow of saliva back to be swallowed, unused. He walked on, following South Drive to the Baseball Meadows, trying to walk gently so as not to wear out his shoes, trying to think of a new way to make money, big money for more property, thinking of dope, grass, hashish, heroin, thinking it was not enough money and when was Lloyd Dunmore going to send him someone with cash to invest as he had promised.
She had driven up from Palo Alto or Menlo Park or Atherton. The car belonged to her father whom she despised because he worked and earned and was serious and could afford the Oldsmobile which used precious fuels and polluted the air and was a symbol to her of their bourgeois decadence which she despised as much as she despised the car and her father and, she said the words as she searched his face for acceptance, “racial intolerance.”
He was tall, strong, black. She was hefty, of medium height, white. He was impeccably groomed: his shirt, trousers, shoes meticulously worn. She bordered on slovenly, her dungarees worn at the knee, ripped at the ass; her tank top stained, loose, a shoulder strap falling, exposing the plump upper skin of a tanned, braless tit.
She was starry-eyed, yet serious. She wanted to give herself to him, had come to the city to give herself to a black man, on a blanket that she’d brought, under the exotic trees of Strybing Arboretum. Her love was free. Her body was a political statement. The act, in some small way, was repayment for what her father, and all her white forefathers, had done to the Africans, repayment for dislocation, enslavement, carpetbaggers, segregated lunch counters, George Wallace, J. Edgar Hoover, the KKK and the FBI.
He was not starry-eyed but horny. He had not been with a woman in a long time. They cost money. They’d have to wait. But she was free. He didn’t have to buy her a drink, dinner. Indeed, she’d offered, during intercourse, to take him to a restaurant! She was passive, detached as he worked away. He liked her hair, long, straight, spreading like rays, like a halo on the blanket under the trees in Golden Gate Park on an evening in mid-July 1971. Afterward he wanted to wash, talk a little, maybe make a date to do it again. She just wanted to leave—like someone coming into court to pay a parking ticket, “You got my payment, now let me out of here!”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Ty said. He felt bewildered.
She carried the blanket, paced steadily toward her father’s Oldsmobile, barely glanced back.
“Wait a minute,” Ty called louder. He jammed his shirttails into his trousers, jogged toward her. “Hey, I—” She opened the trunk, tossed in the blanket, slammed the lid. Her breasts bobbled. He caught up to her. “Hey, I don’t even know your name.”
“Names are meaningless,” she said. She opened the driver’s door.
“Come on, Lady.” Ty smiled, attempted to be charming even as he rushed to intercept her fleeing. “You know, you’ve got a lovely shaped face. I’d like—” She got in, slammed the door. He placed his hands on top of the half-opened window, clicked his pinky ring against the glass. “Aw, don’t just split.”
“I have to go.”
“My name’s Ty. Ty Dorsey. Let me give you my card. I’m a financial—”
“No.” She said the word sharp, loud. “Don’t tell me. That’s not what this is—”
“Oh, for God’s—”
She started the car. He held the window. She began to roll it up. “Maybe another time, Mr. Black,” she said, or at least he thought he heard her say.
He withdrew his right hand, she shifted into drive, rolled forward.
“Hey! Stop!” He screamed. He ran. His left hand was stuck in the w
indow. He ran trying to extricate his fingers. “STOP!” She gunned the engine. The Oldsmobile’s suspension compressed, the car leaped forward. Ty stumbled, his left arm jerked, his shoulder, elbow stretched straight. Then the car was gone and there was terrible pain in his wrist and the back of his hand and he grasped his left hand with his right. He was on his knees on South Drive in Golden Gate Park, cradling his left hand to his stomach, afraid to look, afraid, finally opening his right, seeing blood, knowing it was staining his trousers, his shirt, seeing fingers, sighing with relief, turning his hand to see the cut, seeing the bone, the last socket, the pinky and ring gone.
The pain in his hand, his entire arm, up through his shoulder to his neck, was incredible. For three days he’d suffered in his room, alone, afraid. He had no insurance, no money, none for doctors, none for emergency rooms, none for someone who might ask who he was, or had been. He smoked a skag-arette, another, another. There was money for that—not a lot, enough to let this one pleasure pay for itself. He smoked, lay on the bed, thrashed back and forth, angry at the pain, the loss of the pinky, the ring. The fat fag upstairs, that’s how he always thought of him, the fat fag, he’d been there the evening Ty had returned, Ty’s hand wrapped in toilet paper and paper towels from a gas station rest room, had seen the blood on Ty’s shirt and trousers and shoes and had helped him upstairs to his sixth-floor apartment, a real apartment with kitchenette and its own bath, where they’d unwrapped the paper towels and toilet paper and Ty babbled uncontrollably, unstoppable, exactly what had happened, right down to the carats of the ring and he bet that the bitch wouldn’t even try to return it to him, but had probably thrown ring and finger out on Nineteenth Avenue and was too dumb to stop. The fat fag had washed the wound then rolled Ty’s good right arm over, tied off, slapped up a vein and shot in a speedball that almost knocked Ty to the floor as it blew the top of his head off, the IV heroin kicking in a hundred times stronger than anything Ty had ever done in his life.
The next day, before dawn, he’d been awakened by the pain, waking in only his underwear on the fat fag’s sofa, as horrified by what might have transpired while he was in la-la-land as he was by the stabbing, pulsing realization that his finger had been ripped off. He’d stumbled out, nauseated, scared, stumbled to the stairs, descended the two flights, retched dry bile heaves, only then realizing he didn’t have his pants, his keys, wincing, climbing back, knocking for the fat fag, begging for his clothes, the man so sweet, so concerned, begging him to come back in, to let himself be taken care of until Ty became ornery, then enraged, and the man gave him his clothes and tried to help him but Ty shrugged him off and the man followed him a cautious three or four paces back until Ty opened his own door and slammed it. For three days he suffered, alone, afraid, smoking all the dope he’d bought for resale, ingesting nothing but Coca-Cola from the glass bottles he’d purchased to use as additional alarm bottles at the door-stile if and when he ever drank the contents.
“He’s going to China.”
“Who’s going to China?”
“Nixon.”
“Nixon’s going to China?!”
“Don’t you listen to the news? It was on the news last night.”
“I—I didn’t watch it.”
“The paper?”
“Haven’t read it yet.”
“Bobby!” Sharon began to laugh, not cruelly, not with the least bit of reproach, but with mirth and amusement. “You know, this is really a big story.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, it is. He said he’s going to seek normalized relations.”
“Who?”
“Nixon.” Sharon smiled, shook her head. “I think it might mean the end of the war.”
“Oh.” Bobby screwed up his eyes, his nose, pursed his mouth, knowing it would make Sharon laugh again. “Really?”
“Oh.” Sharon jabbed him on the shoulder. “You knew it all the time. Stop pulling my leg.” Bobby glanced down at Sharon’s legs. She was wearing pants. Still she fidgeted playfully. “I bet I do know something you haven’t heard,” she said.
“What’s that?” His mind had not assimilated, processed, projected anything about the China news which he had not previously heard.
Sharon moved closer. “That big turkey that Peter listed and sold ...” Her voice was conspiratorial.
“You mean the Victorian way out on Miwok?”
Sharon moved even closer. “Um-hmm.” She whispered, “The town’s seeking an injunction against the new owner.”
“Why?” Bobby had not heard this either.
“They were fixing it up ...” Sharon began.
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “It certainly needed it.”
“... but they were also expanding it and keeping the apartments. I think Peter made a deal with the building inspector that it could be fixed but the inspector said okay only if they stayed within the existing foundation. Lisa says they pushed out the back about twenty feet for four more units.”
“That’s zoned single-family ...”
“Hm-hmm.”
“I bet they get away with it.”
“I don’t know.”
Bobby didn’t answer. He looked Sharon up and down, looked away. He wanted to compliment her, wanted to tell her how much he admired her, her smile, her pleasant approach to life. He fantasized about her on and off, but had always remained perfectly proper. In some fantasies she had left her boyfriend, Red had been killed in an auto accident—something very clean and very sad—and an appropriate amount of time had passed. They were in the office, alone, exactly as they were now.
“Anyway,” Sharon caught his wandering mind, “I think if you get the listing on that old Third Street duplex, I’ve got an investor who’d be interested.”
“What perfume are you wearing?”
“Hmm?” Her whole face lit.
“Ah ... it ... it’s really nice.”
“It’s just Chanel,” she said. “Nothing fancy.”
“It’s really nice,” he repeated.
“Thank you,” Sharon said. Then she laughed and smiled. “You’re losing weight, aren’t you?”
“A little,” Bobby said. “I can’t believe how fat I’ve gotten. I’ve never been fat.”
“You’re not fat.”
“Fatter than I should be. But I’ve cut out drinking beer with dinner. I think it’s the beer doing it.”
In August the Klemenchichs got their house. The widow, Mrs. Watercross, was delighted. Bobby had listed her property for three thousand dollars more than he (and she, too, after seeing the comparable sales list Bobby had prepared) believed was top dollar. Then that lovely young woman had brought her a full-price offer with a thirty-day close. Together, Bobby and Olivia Taft showed Mrs. Watercross how she could have the best of both immediate cash plus income. Mrs. Watercross adored Estelle Klemenchich. She was happy that Estelle was thinking of raising a family in the same house that she herself had raised her own children. Bobby too was thrilled. The commission broke his dry spell. He was back on track. He had money in his pocket. And luck upon luck, he’d just “made” another ten at North Bay Mall, “the easiest ten bucks I ever made” is how Al Bartecchi quoted him when Al told Dan Coleman later that afternoon.
“Naw,” Dan had said. “Wapinski wouldn’t do that.”
“That’s what he told me.” Al flipped a dispirited hand, grunted.
“He didn’t say anything?!”
“Nope.” Al was disappointed. His feelings infected Dan.
“You mean he knew the store undercharged him and he—”
“He was bragging about it.”
“Maybe he’s been around Peter too long.”
“Maybe. I mean he was really happy.”
“What’d you say to him?”
“Nothing at first.”
“Nothing?”
“Well, Jane was there. She likes him, you know.”
“What’d she say?”
“Nothing. But I don’t think she liked that either. When she
left I asked him.”
“Same as you did with Peter that time?”
“Yeah. I said, ‘Bob, what did you just sell for that ten dollars?’ He looked at me kind of puzzled. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Yes you did,’ I said. I said, ‘You sold your honesty for ten bucks. Isn’t it worth more than that?’”
“What’d he say?”
“You know. What could he say? I pressed him though. I said, ‘Didn’t you just sell your integrity for ten bucks?’ He said, ‘It was Sears! They were probably overcharging me anyway.’ I said, ‘Probably. But that’s not the point. What they do to themselves doesn’t concern me. What you do to yourself ...’ He said, ‘Aw, cut the crap. It was a lousy ten bucks,’ I just dropped it.”
“Well, let it work on his head,” Coleman said.
Al chuckled. “Just like you did it to me.”
Bobby hated the summer nights of 1971, hated going home, avoided the Deepwoods house like hemophiliacs avoid razors. But he did not know what to do. Occasionally he entered additional thoughts into his journal.
4 July: In the whole time we’ve been together, I’ve never asked her to do anything because whenever I have she resents it.
17 July: If I look at Red as a woman she thinks I’m lewd and disgusting. If I don’t look at her as a woman she thinks I don’t love her.
3 Aug: What I say I want for her, I want for everyone, and I want it badly for her and me. This world is going nuts. There’s got to be a better way.
14 Aug: I want to leave her. I don’t love her. I do love her but she doesn’t love me. I love her but I don’t need her. She doesn’t want to be married. Cramps her style. She can’t fuck around. She doesn’t really want me. Not how I want to be wanted.
I bully her. Tell her she’s not doing it right. Shoddy. Half-ass. Never finishes anything. Richard Townsmark has been transferred to L.A. Without him, she’s in trouble at work for not following through. I love her but I can’t live with her like this. If she gets fired ...
Occasionally he called home. “Happy Birthday, Granpa.”
“Bob. Where are you calling from?”
“My office. Did I wake you?”
“Nope. Jus watching the news. Australia and New Zealand say they’re goina withdraw all their soldiers from Viet Nam by year’s end. You’re workin late, eh?”
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